Lambert van Tweenhuysen

Lambert van Tweenhuysen was a prominent merchant from Amsterdam who was among the founders of the New Netherland Company and the Northern Company.

As a man of diverse business interests, van Tweenhuysen traded in various goods such as salt, corn, wine, wood, linseed, textiles, tar, soap, furs, spices, and pearls, while his trade connections ranged from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea.

From surviving sources it can be seen that van Tweenhuysen had investments in the company that sent in 1612 the first Dutch walrus-hunting expedition to Spitsbergen in northern Norway, and a year later he launched the whaling expedition to the same area.

Besides that, van Tweenhuysen was one of the founders of the New Netherland Company (Nieuw-Nederland Compagnie) established in 1614 with the aim to monopolize trade with Native Americans in the newly formed Dutch colony, and of the Northern Company (Noordsche Compagnie) which was formed to monopolize whaling in the Arctic, primarily at Spitsbergen (Svalbard) in northern Norway.